German Patent Publication DE 43 01 681 C1 (Schumacher), published on Oct. 20, 1994, and corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,556,332, describes such service units, called passenger service units (PSU), in a passenger aircraft cabin. The PSUs are provided for each row of seats and are mounted beneath the luggage compartments arranged in the upper area of the cabin. Increasingly, such luggage compartments are being fitted with a flap or shell that can be lowered. Such lowerable flaps, however, do not allow a service unit to be positioned in the middle area of the row of seats because the service unit would interfere with the luggage compartment flap when the flap is lowered. Consequently, the service units are conventionally displaced away from the middle area toward the windows, where they are not readily accessible to the passengers sitting in the aisle seats, whereby a conflict area is formed between passengers in window seats and center seats and passengers in aisle seats who have a harder time reaching the service units, whereby the latter can annoy the former when trying to access the service units.
Further, it is important for the passengers to have a sense of comfort and well-being based on a cabin that presents a spacious appearance to avoid a closed-in feeling. The arrangement of the service units in the upper area of the cabin, as described in the above mentioned publication, detracts from the positive impression of a spacious cabin. The free and clear head room is limited by the space needed by each passenger to access the service unit. As a result, the inner contour of the cabin is correspondingly low at this location. Furthermore, the service units also require repositioning when the seating layout is changed. This results in substantial additional time and effort for assembly and maintenance of the seating arrangement.
It is also known that certain elements for passenger comfort and service can be arranged in the passenger seats. For example, German Patent Publication DE 37 19 105 A1 (Keiper), published on Dec. 22, 1988, shows a flight passenger seat, in which communication elements such as receivers, loudspeakers, video connections, control elements, and reading lamps are integrated. The communication and control elements are part of a wireless radio information system powered by an energy source that is allocated to the specific seat.
DE 42 27 377 A1 (Beroth), published on Feb. 25, 1993 discloses a further passenger seat which contains an emergency oxygen system. An oxygen generator is integrated into the seat section while a mask compartment is provided in the backrest. This publication, however, does not show how additional components for supplying passenger services are arranged.
In German Patent Publication DE 34 44 802 C2 (Sprenger et al.), published on Jun. 12, 1986; corresponds partly to U.S. Pat. No. 4,774,514 (Hildebrandt), it is suggested that data terminals be arranged at the passenger seat, particularly in the rear side of the backrests of the seats, for providing the passengers with service, monitoring, entertainment, information, and management to functions. According to this publication, the passenger can use these terminals to gather certain information, perform certain work, or for entertainment. The above mentioned publication discloses nothing about the arrangement of other systems that are relevant to passengers, such as flight attendant call, on-board speaker system, reading lamps and air nozzles.
The above conventional, prior art thus shows that single components or single systems that function for the most part independently of a total supply or service system, can be integrated into a seat and thus become a structural part of the seat. However, a functional consolidation of all components that are available to the passenger, in the form of one service unit, separate from the passenger seat, and that are fed from one main supply line, is not known.